The restaurant occupies the former Silva’s Seafood Market space, which has been closed for years, and had later become a Brazilian takeout restaurant. The building was first constructed in 1920, and after a full renovation, the only original elements are the decades-old tin ceilings, which are now painted dark blue.

The owner, chef Kevin Matos, and his family have long owned Matos Bakery in Pawtucket and previously owned JC’s Butcher Shop in West Warwick, where he specialized in sausages that were hand cut, seasoned, and smoked in house. Matos Bakery, which has been in business for more than two decades, started after Matos’s parents immigrated to the US from Portugal. They worked in factories before opening the bakery. Matos remembers sleeping on bags of flour at the bakery at night as a kid while they worked.

Matos attended Johnson & Wales University and went on to work in other restaurants, including Nicks on Broadway for a short stint. He staged at Aldrea, a Michelin-starred Portuguese restaurant in New York City, and worked at a French fine dining establishment in Boston.

When Cafe Alma opens, it’ll be split between a café and the dining room with about 30 seats.

Music will be part of the experience, said Matos. Think: low-volume sets on the weekends – so diners can still have a conversation – with occasional piano or violin performances.

The menu won’t be strictly traditional. “This will be New England Portuguese,” said Matos, who said the menu reflects how Portuguese cooking has evolved in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts, two hubs for Portuguese populations.

The opening menu will include smoked chourico wings; bacalhau, a Portuguese term for codfish that has been dried and salted; smoked piri piri quail; polvo a plancha (grilled octopus) with molho cru (a fish sauce) or cebolada com pimentos; and duck fat confit potatoes. He’s building out a bread program, and plans to serve pizzas with a Portuguese twist. They’ll be in the middle of a Neapolitan and New Haven style pie, cooking in 5 minutes, with a spicy tomato sauce.

Eventually, the restaurant will also double as a gallery space, featuring rotating work from local artists. Artists won’t be charged to show their work, said Matos, and customers will be able to purchase their work right at the restaurant.

Matos also has a series of long-term ideas to turn the Portuguese corridor and Warren Avenue into a cultural destination. He’s planning community events and block parties with neighboring businesses, quarterly wine clubs, ticketed chef collaborations that will be run by his general manager Billy Panzella (formerly of Dune Brothers), and a chef’s tasting menu booked weeks in advance, where each guest receives a one-of-a-kind experience. Expanding outside of East Providence isn’t off the table either.

“We’ve got to focus here and push this place to succeed,” said Matos. “And then I definitely want to open our own place in Boston or New York.”

The cafe will have an array of espresso drinks. The bar program is still being ironed out, but it will lean heavily into Portuguese wine, particularly the lesser-seen bottles, and feature smoked cocktails, and a Portuguese-influenced Old Fashioned using aged brandy.

One wine, which is aged in clay, reminds him of when he was a kid and his father would drink from clay cups.

“I remember tasting that clay, and then I drank that wine and I was literally just teleported back when I was a little kid,” said Matos. Both of his parents have moved back to Portugal, but have been in Rhode Island, anticipating his opening. “That’s what I love about food. It just transports you.”

This story first appeared in The Food Club, a free weekly email newsletter about Rhode Island food and dining. Already a member of the club? Check your inbox for more news, recipes, and features in the latest newsletter. Not a member yet? If you’d like to receive it via e-mail each Thursday, you can sign up here.

Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.

The two are among 15 city councilors who will have to decide whether to implement rent stabilization in Providence this year. An ordinance introduced last month would cap rent increases at 4 percent a year across the city, with many exceptions, including for newly constructed homes. More than half of the council’s members are either renters or landlords in the city. And their own experiences, and those of their neighbors, have helped shape their opinions.

Sanchez is in favor, and Vargas is opposed.

Nationwide, renters are underrepresented in government, according to a 2022 study by Boston University and the University of Georgia, which found the share of renters in local, state, and federal elected office ranges from 2 to 7 percent. The Providence City Council bucks the trend; 26 percent of its members are renters, including the council president. It’s still far below the estimated 60 percent of Providence residents who rent.

In January 2025, a Redfin report named Providence the least affordable city for renters, when comparing the median salary to average rents. Lawmakers across the country, from local officials to President Trump, have been grappling with the best way to making housing more affordable.

“I really have a hard time wrapping my head around how people are surviving out there right now,” said Sanchez, 27. Average salaries in Providence have not increased as much as rents. He said he makes around $50,000 a year, not nearly enough to afford the roughly $2,000 average monthly cost of a one-bedroom.

“We hear over and over about families that have called Providence home for decades being displaced,” he said. He blames large corporations that “look at our housing as just a profit margin.”

But the way Vargas sees it: “When government comes into your home, it’s a problem.” It’s expensive to manage a property, he said, and rent control would decimate what he sees as a path to prosperity in his community.

“We have an American dream — buy a house,” Vargas said. “We are shutting off this dream.”

Vargas, 55, may not be subject to rent control limits under the proposal, which would exempt owner-occupied properties of three units or less, and let those landlords exempt a second small home. But “what if I decide to buy another property?” he asked. “What if I decide to move? That house I live in now is going to fall into rent control.”

Hundreds of municipalities have rent control in the United States, though they are concentrated in relatively few states. Thirty states, including Massachusetts, ban the practice. Advocates in Massachusetts are seeking to put a question on November’s ballot to overturn the ban, which Governor Maura Healey opposes.

Over the next several months, a fierce debate will consume Providence City Hall over whether to pass the ordinance. Testimony from the public will be taken at a hearing on Feb. 18. A slim majority of eight councilors have said they support it so far, but leadership needs 10 to override an almost-certain veto from Mayor Brett Smiley. Of the other seven councilors, three are opposed and four have not yet taken a position.

There are four renters on the council — including Council President Rachel Miller, who spearheaded the proposal — and four landlords. The rest own single-family homes.

Smiley is also a landlord, in a three-family home on Hope Street where he lives in one unit with his husband, real estate agent Jim DeRentis, and rents out two units.

Smiley’s home would be exempt from rent control limits under the proposal. He argues the solution to bringing rents down is to build more housing, and has said he would veto the ordinance as it is written.

But not every landlord in City Hall is opposed. Councilors Juan Pichardo and Althea Graves each own two properties in the city, and are both sponsors of the ordinance.

“I am voting for this because I don’t want to lose another neighbor,” Graves said.

The carveouts written into the ordinance likely spare every landlord on the council from rent control except for Councilor Pedro Espinal, who owns five properties, too many to be exempt.

He told the Globe he charges very low rents to his longtime tenants — under $1,000 for two-bedroom units — based on their ability to pay. He said he hasn’t raised rents in years.

“But if this were going to be enacted, I would have to rethink that, because my base rents would be very low,” Espinal said. The proposal keeps the 4 percent limit in place even when the unit is vacated.

Espinal was the vice chair of the Housing Crisis Task Force, which last year recommended the city explore the possibility of rent stabilization. But he said he has “very serious concerns” about the legislation that was ultimately crafted.

“This really does not reduce rents,” Espinal said. “In my view, it guarantees that you will have a rent increase every year at 4 percent.”

Councilor Mary Kay Harris, who chaired that task force and is a longtime renter, said she supports the ordinance because something has to be done.

“Rent’s too damn high,” said Harris, who lives in South Providence. “It’s high for everybody. Everybody’s being priced out.”

Councilor John Goncalves, a renter in the Fox Point neighborhood, has not decided where he stands on rent control. He said he is studying how it works in other cities.

Councilors Jo-Ann Ryan, Shelley Peterson, and Ana Vargas, all homeowners, are also undecided.

Councilor James Taylor, another homeowner, is among those who oppose the ordinance.

Advocates on the council argue the carveouts in the ordinance address many of the opponents’ concerns. Newly constructed apartments would be exempt from rent control for 15 years, potentially addressing fears that housing production would slow down. Many small landlords who live in their properties will avoid rent control altogether. Plus, landlords would have an opportunity to ask a newly-created rent board for permission to raise rent above the cap, if they can prove that they need to do so to make a “fair return” on their property.

The sponsors said the goal is to target larger landlords most likely to hike rents.

“Providence used to be a city where everybody had a chance to thrive,” Graves said. “Now all we got to do is walk down any street and see that it’s no longer that.”

Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.